When Visions of Sugarplums are Taken Away: Teaching Dancers to Deal with Disappointment

            “The getting back up is so much more important than the getting knocked down.” – David Dorfman on A Chance to Dance

            The school year has started, dance classes are now in full swing, and dance schools have begun to hold auditions for annual Nutcracker productions.  Students crowd into studios vying for coveted roles, knowing that there are many more parts for corps dancers than there are for soloists.  The auditions end, and the dancers go home and wait to find out which role or roles they will be dancing in this year’s production.

            Some students will be lucky and be given the roles they have pined for while others will be disappointed, and in some cases devastated, to learn that they will be dancing a corps part or a part they may have danced previously.

           

            Dance teaches much more than simply technique.  Dance teaches lessons of discipline, dedication, and responsibility, and dance teaches that sometimes life is not fair.  It is difficult for students to imagine that sometimes roles are not cast on the basis of talent or skill level.  Casting is quite often determined by available costumes, the number of students auditioning, dancers’ heights, and the amount of time necessary for costume changes.  Selecting a cast for large productions is often more a matter of logistics than skill levels.

            When the cast list is posted, there are going to be students who are disappointed.  Disappointment exists in dance and in life.  As the students get older, there will be bigger disappointments in their lives.  They will apply for scholarships that they do not receive, they will apply to colleges that do not accept them, they will have friends that prove to be disloyal, and there will be interviews or auditions for jobs they do not get.

            American psychoanalyst, teacher, and scholar, Heinz Kohut, believed that disappointment promotes growth because it motivates people to work harder and fight back.  Those who always receive what they want and hope for will be satisfied with the status quo and may not push themselves to improve, while those who are disappointed tend to push themselves harder, reach beyond previous boundaries, and grow as people.

            As logical and promising as that theory sounds, disappointment is still a very difficult part of life for both dance students and their parents.  A parent’s first reaction is to protect his or her child and try to speak with the director in an effort to “fix” the problem.  Intervening will not help build the child’s coping skills and will make the child believe that every disappointment can be fixed.

                       

            It is important for the student and his or her parents to acknowledge the disappointment and talk about it.  There will undoubtedly be feelings of anger, sadness, and frustration, which are all understandable.  Experiencing these feelings and working through them will help the students learn to cope with disappointments and setbacks in the future and make them stronger individuals.  After dealing with the initial feelings of disappointment, it is also important that the parent help the child focus upon his or her strengths and refocus the child’s energy on working toward future goals in dance.

            Not being cast in a coveted role is hard to accept, it is upsetting and frustrating, and it hurts.  However, standing back up, continuing to take pride in one’s dancing and working harder than before is how dancers grow and prepare themselves to be productive, mature adults who will persevere in spite of life’s obstacles.

A Chance to Dance Offers A Chance to Learn

"Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt.  Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent.” – Nolan Ryan

            Television shows featuring dance and dancers are rapidly gaining popularity during prime time viewing slots.  DancingWith the Stars pairs professional dancers with celebrities in a competition, So You Think You Can Dance pits dancers of various styles and skill levels against each other, Breaking Pointe followed seven company members of Ballet West for six weeks, and A Chance To Dance invites viewers into the audition process.

            All of these shows have engaged a large part of the general viewing audience who might now have a better appreciation for the work dancers do.  The questions that remain unanswered are whether dancers are as eager to watch these shows and if there is anything they can learn from watching them.

            The episode of A Chance to Dance that aired on September 14, showcased the skill levels that each dancer brought to the audition and provided an important lesson for today’s dancers and dance educators.

            The show centers on dancers who have been recruited by Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt, who have been asked to form a company for Nigel Lythgoe.  This group of twenty-four recruits must be whittled down to a dozen dancers, who will be given “a chance to dance” in the company.  In this episode, Allison Holker from So You Think You Can Dance and David Dorfman, artistic director of David Dorfman Dance, have been asked to work with and continue to audition the dancers.

            The dancers all have various levels of training and technical backgrounds.  Kaitlin describes herself as a “classical dancer”, Shepherd has specialized in hip-hop, and Patrick and Bayli are described as technical dancers.

            Allison’s and David’s approaches are different for many of the dancers.  The dancers are asked to take part in improvisation, to let their bodies dictate how to transition between phrases, to show emotion through their dancing, and to choreograph.  Laura’s statement, “I’ve never had a teacher or a class like that before where you’re just like so free with your body,” after David’s class, gives the audience a clear picture of her background and training.  She is not alone in feeling this way, and many of the dancers struggle with being too technical and feeling uncomfortable emoting through movement and choreographing, or with being too specialized and unable to adapt to different styles of dance.

            A Chance To Dance creates a picture of the demands placed upon today’s dancers and underscores the need for all dancers to study, or at the very least be exposed to, other styles and techniques of dance.  The classically trained dancers lacked the ability to move freely and seemed emotionally detached from their dancing while dancers like Shepherd, whose specialty was hip-hop, needed to be “more rounded”.  Fewer and fewer companies seem to be looking for specialized dancers.  Today modern choreographers like Twyla Tharp and Jessica Lang are being brought in to choreograph for ballet companies, urging dancers to take ballet off-balance and to listen to the music differently.  Even ballet choreographers have begun to infuse their dances with some contemporary elements.

            Dancers who wish to specialize in one technique need to be proficient in others to satisfy the demand of today’s directors and choreographers.  Dance students, regardless of what technique they are studying, need the opportunity to choreograph phrases and learn different choreographic techniques that can be used.  These same dancers also need to be taught how to perform and use dance as a vehicle to relate to their audiences.  The most famous dancers of the past are those whose dancing was technically sound and whose ability to emote through dance was well developed.

            Lastly, today’s dancers need to have anatomical knowledge in order to adapt to the various demands of different dance forms.  Adapting requires strong dancers, healthy dancers and dancers that are comfortable in their own bodies.  One of David Dorfman’s critiques of Chase was that he did not have “the knowledge in the joints”.  By encouraging cross training in dancers, educators help decrease muscular imbalances that are common in specialized dancers, create stronger dancers, and give their students an educated awareness of their bodies.  This awareness is necessary in today’s demanding dance world.

            Unless dance educators encourage exposure to other techniques, provide opportunities for creativity and using movement to communicate, and encourage cross-training to meet today’s rigorous demands, very few dancers will be able to work effectively with today’s artistic directors and choreographers.

            A Chance To Dance illustrates these points to both the general public and to dancers, providing both a realistic view of the dance world and an educational experience for all of those lucky enough to watch.